The primordial story of Arabia is lost in the unfathomable darkness of antiquity. The annals of no people are involved in more uncertainty or present greater difficulties in their investigation than those of the Bedouins, as the popular accounts which we possess of their early history bear unquestionable indications of recent date and fictitious origin. Ignorant of the art of writing for centuries before the time of Mohammed, their traditions were orally transmitted, and, in addition to being necessarily subject to all the defects of this mode of communication, were colored by that love of exaggeration and falsehood which seems to be an integral part of the Oriental character. The meagre hints which can be gleaned from these unsatisfactory materials are all that we can rely upon in the almost hopeless attempt to construct a chronological and historical outline of pre-Islamic events. The statements of Moslem writers concerning these events must be subjected to rigid criticism. They suppressed many facts, and condemned indiscriminately the practices of their heathen ancestors; although they knew that the Prophet drew his inspiration largely from this source, and that Islamism could never have been established without the acceptance of many of these idolatrous ceremonies in all their integrity. As far as can at present be determined by the aid of the imperfect and suspicious data at our command, and by a comparison of the physical and mental characteristics of surrounding nations, Arabia has long been a base of extensive emigration, chiefly into Central Asia; while her southern and eastern provinces have, from the days when some famished Bedouin first discovered the marvellous fertility enjoyed by the Valley of the Nile, been the prolific source from whence Egypt recruited her diminishing population.